Pare 2008 Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

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Land use analysis from spatial and field data capture in southern Burkina Faso,West Africa

Souleymane Pare a,*, Ulf Soderbergb, Mats Sandewall b, Jean Marie Ouadba c

a Tropical Silviculture and Seed Laboratory, Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-901 83 Umea, Swedenb Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-901 83 Umea, Swedenc Institut de lEnvironnement et de la Recherches Agricoles, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique,

Departements Productions Forestieres, 03 BP 7047, Ouagadougou 03, Burkina Faso

1. Introduction

Since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, many studies have

concentrated on environmental issues in the tropics, which have

positively influenced national environmental policies (Glicken,

2000; Benjaminsen, 2001). However, environmental degradation

continues to be a major ecological concern in tropical countries,

where population growth and food production exert increased

pressure on the ecological system (Nagendra et al., 2004; Wright,

2005; Etter et al., 2006; Pacheco, 2006). Thus, monitoring land use

dynamics is essential to tune management strategies that enable a

balance between production and conservation. For the assessment

of the land use/cover changes, remote sensing data play a major

role with their ability to provide quantitative information on the

spatial dynamics of land cover from different time periods (Tekle

and Hedlund, 2000; Tottrup and Rasmussen, 2004; Deng et al.,

2006; Mottet et al., 2006). This technique contributes greatly to a

global understanding of environmental processes, but analysis at

the local scale is more complicated. Finer scale studies in the

Sudano-Sahelian zone reveal the complexity of land use situations,

which are difficult to predict (Warren, 2002; Wardell et al., 2003;

Burgos and Maass, 2004).

Since the 1970s, recurrent drought in Burkina Faso has

intensified the internal mobility of people towards the southern

and western parts, which have favorable environmental conditions

(Boutillier et al., 1985; Henry et al., 2003; Ouedraogo, 2003; Henry

et al., 2004). Based on satellite images from 1955, 1983 and 1993,

Howorth and OKeefe (1999) concluded that the population

increase due to immigration has not led to environmental

degradation in the southern region of Burkina Faso. However,

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 127 (2008) 277285

A R T I C L E I N F O

Article history:

Received 2 April 2007

Received in revised form 5 April 2008

Accepted 11 April 2008

Available online 3 June 2008

Keywords:

Change detection

Land use dynamics

Migration

Spatial approach

A B S T R A C T

Informed decision on the management of natural resources requires an understanding of the complex

dynamics of socio-economic and biophysical factors. This study aimed at exploring theland usechange in

southern Burkina Faso at regional and local levels and the underlying causes of change. The local level

study was conducted in twovillages, Boala and Yale, in Sissili Province. Aerial photos from 1984 and1997

and satellite images from 1986 and 2002 were employed to describe the land use dynamics. The spatial

approach was combined with field data collected in 2003 and 2005 for ground-truth checking and

gathering other relevant data. Semi-structured questionnaire was used for gathering data on socio-

economic factors driving land use changes at local level. At regional scale, the annual rate of change in

forest land, grazingland, galleryforest and cropland was0.4, 0.9, 1.6 and 3.8%, respectively. The size

of croplands increased by 14% in some districts with an equivalent annual rate of conversion to cropland

estimated at 0.6% during 19862002. At the local level, the size of croplands increased from 7 to 14% in

Boala and from 21 to 30% in Yale at the expense of shrinking of forest cover from 78 to 40% in the former

and from 41 to 18% in the latter village. Rural migration (3.3% at regional level, and as high as 97% in Yale

and 9% in Boala) coupled with extensive subsistence farming, large-scale commercial farming, intensivefuelwood extraction andother disturbances were the main factorsdriving landuse change.In conclusion,

the results show that in a decade and half the southern region of Burkina Faso has moved from a sparsely

populated area with subsistence farming to a more complex zone of production characterized by high

competition between different land use types. Integrated management of the natural resources in the

region should, therefore, be given more attention.

2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 90 786 83 25; fax: +46 90 786 83 14.

E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Pare).

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agee

0167-8809/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2008.04.009
mailto:[email protected]://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01678809http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2008.04.009http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2008.04.009http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01678809mailto:[email protected]


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Wardell et al. (2003) found that significant deforestation had in

fact occurred during the period 19862001 in western and

southern regions along the Volta River basins. Recently, Braimoh

(2006) obtained a deforestation rate of 11% in the grassland areas

and a degradation of 17% in the woodlands of the northern region

of Ghana for the period 19841999, which has a similar ecological

zone as the southern Burkina Faso. Based on analysis of satellite

images from 1986 to 2002, Ouedraogo (2006) found an annual

deforestation rate of 1% in the Bieha district in Sissili Province of

southern Burkina Faso. These findings led to the formulation of key

questions which guided this study: (a) what is the current trend in

land use in the study area? (b) How can the situation observed at

the local scale improve understanding of observations at the

regional (orsub national)scale? (c)Whatare thedrivers of land use

change? To answer these questions, changes in land use were

quantified based on multi-temporal spatial data at different scales

over a 16-year period combined with field-based observation and

information gathered from farmers. We presented several maps

that depict the current change in land use, analyzed the impact of

the change in farming systems on the condition of the forest

ecosystem and recommended strategies for natural resource

management.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Study area

The study was carried out in Sissili and Ziro Provinces, which

are located ca. 160 km from thecapital (Ouagadougou) in southern

Burkina Faso (1l8020128000 N and 01830028800W), West Africa

(Fig. 1). The study area is characterized by low relief with an

average altitude of 300 m a.s.l. and consists primarily of settle-

ments, cultivated lands, open savanna woodlands, and small areas

of deciduous forests. The forest vegetation includescommunity (To

and Boura) and State protected forests (Sissili classified forest,

Kabore Tambi national park, Cassou forest exploitation zone).

According to Fontes and Guinko (1995), the flora of the region is

dominated by perennial grass species such asAndropogon ascinodis

C.B.C.I, A. gayanus Kunth, and Schizachyrium sanguineum (Retz.)

Alston, which constitute the open savanna. The ligneous species

such as Afzelia africana Smith ex Pers., Khaya senegalensis (Desr.) A.

Juss. and Pterocarpus erinaceus Poir. are also important fodder

species. The occurrence of scattered tree species, such as Vitellaria

paradoxa Gaertn. f., Parkia biglobosa (Jacq.) R. Br. ex G. Don. and

Tamarindus indica L., on croplands is also a common feature in the

Fig. 1. Location of the study area.

S. Pare et al. / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 127 (2008) 277285278


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study area. This area belongs to the Sudanian or south-Sudanian

zone according to the phyto-geographical zoning established by

White (1986) and Guinko (1984), respectively. The mean (S.E.)

annual rainfall for the years 19952000 was 859.20 31.98 mm and

the number of rainy days per annum was 53.40 2.54. The average

annual temperature is 27.1 8C, with a maximum average monthly

temperature of 31.7 8C in April and a minimum average monthly

temperature of 25.3 8C in August. The population is constituted of a

native ethnic group, Nouni, and migrant group mainly Mossi

(originating from the centre and northwest of Burkina Faso) and

Fulani (originating from northern Burkina Faso). The average

population density is 28 inhabitants/km2 in both Sissili and Ziro

Provinces. The farming system is characterized by traditional

subsistence farming and cultivation of cash crops (cotton, cashew

tree) as well as intensive fuelwood extractions and ranching.

2.2. Land use mapping

The assessment of changes in theland usewas made at regional

and local scales. For regional scale study, two satellite images from

1986 and 2002 were visually interpreted and processed to map

land cover changes. The basic data source was Landsat satellite

images (TMand ETM+):Path195 andRow 52 from November1986and October 2002, with 30 m spatial resolution. Administrative,

topographic and forest maps obtained from the Institute of

Geography andother sources (Kargougou, 2001; Ouedraogo, 2002;

Yameogo and Ramde, 2004) were also used during land use cover

change analysis. The spatial data were further checked for ground-

truth on 58 plots located by a GPS. Canopy coverand canopyheight

were used as criteria to define the woody vegetation units as

follows:

A forest as woody vegetation with canopy cover >40% and

canopy height >5 m

A woodland as vegetation with canopy cover between 15 and

40%; canopy height >5 m

A gallery forest as a stripe of woody vegetation occurring alongthe main riverbank.

To assess the land use dynamics at a local scale, two villages,

Boala and Yale, from Sissili Province were selected. The two

villages differ in the level of farming and in the proportion of

migrant population. To analyze the land use dynamics, aerial

photographs from 1984 and 1997 and a satellite image from 2002

were visually interpreted. The photographs were provided by the

Institute of Geography in Burkina Faso (viz. Mission 84067B Po

1984, scale 1:50,000; Mission 97158B, Sissili 1997, scale 1:20,000).

A field survey was conducted in 2004 to collect ground-truth

information based on 91 plots in Yale and 66 plots in Boala. The

land use descriptions were based on the nomenclature from the

Land cover map of Africa (Mayaux et al., 2004). Four land useclasses were identified for visual interpretation: forest land (a

mosaic of woody vegetation), cropland (land currently under

cultivation and fallows), grazing land (tree and/or shrub savanna),

and gallery forest (a stripe of woody vegetation along the main

riverbank). The mapping was done using GIS tools in Arcview 3.3.

2.3. Drivers of land use change

To further understand the land use dynamics, we gathered data

on factors that could be the underlying causes of land use change,

such as human population, farming system, disturbances to the

different land use types and infrastructure development. At

regional level, data on the population density were drawn from

the national census reports (INSD, 1989, 1998; MATD, 2005) while

local census was conducted in the two villages in October 2002 to

obtain demographic information for the purpose of this study. To

characterize the farming system, farmers were interviewed about

their farm conditions such the length of cultivation time, the type

of crop cultivated, farming techniques, as well as the land tenure

issues and ownership. To assess disturbances in the forests, a

systematic stratified sampling design was applied where the

protected and non-protected forests within a village were

demarcated first, and then systematically sampled by laying

circular plots (55 m radius) on grids. Due to a late acquisitionof the

satellite image from 2002, the sample plots were delineated based

on a map drawn from the 1997 aerial photograph. In Yale, the plots

(91) covered 0.9% of the protected area of the village, and the same

in the remaining non-protected area. In Boala, the plots (66)

represented 1% of the total area of the village. The assessment

included number of stumps of trees cut for fuelwood and local

construction, number of trees pruned for animal feed, number of

trees uprooted by elephants and the percentage of the plot with

indicators of grazing (animal trails, hoof print and herbage

removal). With regard to infrastructure development, we calcu-

lated the road networks at regional and local scales directly from

the maps.

2.4. Data analyses

After each land use type was delineated, its area and proportion

of each land use cover to the total area was computed. The change

in each land use type during the study period was calculated as the

ratio of the difference in area between years to that of the initial

year. This change was further divided by the time interval to get

the annual rate of change. The annual rate of conversion to

cropland was calculated as the difference in proportion of

croplands between years divided by the time interval. Data on

farm attributes were analyzed using descriptive statistics while

information from interviews and field assessment was summar-

ized and presented.

3. Results

3.1. Land use dynamics at a local scale

The trend of land use change was similar between the villages,

although the magnitude of land use change differed. In Boala, the

proportion of cropland doubled while the grazing land tripled

during the 16-year period (Table 1A and Fig. 2). Forest land was

decreased nearly by half in 2002 compared to its coverage in 1984,

while the size of the gallery forest didnot change much. In Yale, the

size of crop and grazing lands increased by 9 and 18% in 2002

Table 1

Land use change at a local level for the period 19842002

Land use type 1984 1997 2002

Total (ha) % Total (ha) % Total (ha) %

(A) Boala

Croplands 586 7 957 12 1,145 14

Grazing lands 1,038 13 3,616 44 3,719 45

Forest lands 6,434 78 3,614 44 3,323 40

Gallery forests 191 2 62 1 62 1

Total 8,249 100 8,249 100 8,249 100

(B) Yale

Croplands 2,184 21 2,735 26 3,205 30

Grazing lands 3,169 30 5,006 47 5,112 48

Forest lands 4,411 41 2,282 21 1,879 18

Gallery forests 877 8 618 6 445 4

Total 10,641 100 10,641 100 10,641 100

S. Pare et al. / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 127 (2008) 277285 279


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compared to thesizes in 1984, while theforest land and the gallery

forests declined by nearly 50%(Table 1B and Fig. 3). At a local scale,

the annual rate of conversion to cropland was estimatedas 0.4% for

Boala and 0.5% in Yale.

3.2. Land use dynamics at the regional scale

At the regional level, the various land use types included

extensive grazing areas, pastoral management unit, subsistence

and commercial agriculture, conservation forest, and production

forest mainly for fuelwood extraction (Fig. 4). The actual size and

proportion of thedifferent land usetypeschangedduring thestudy

period. In 1986, the grazing land had much higher proportion of

the total regional area than other land use types while the size of

croplands was substantially high after 16 years (Table 2). The size

of other land use types decreased during the study period;

particularly the decrease was more notable in the gallery forest

and grazing land. Interestingly, the annual conversion rate to

croplands varied among districts within provinces. In Ziro

Province, the lowest conversion rate was observed in Cassou

and the highest in Bougnounou (Table 3). In Sissili Province, the

lowest and highest conversion rates were observed in Silly and

Fig. 2. Land use change in Boala village during 19842002.



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Niabouri districts, respectively, while no conversion was noted in

Nabielianayou.

3.3. Drivers of land use change

There was an increase in population at both regional and local

levels during the study period. At a regional scale, the annual rate

of increase in population density was 3.3% with remarkable

variation among districts within provinces (Table 3). The values

ranged from 0.7% (Bougnounou) to 5% (Sapouy) in Ziro Province,

and from 2.8% (To) to 9% (Niabouri) in Sissili Province. The annual

change in population density showed some correspondence with

the annual rate of conversion to croplands in most of the districts.

Fig. 3. Land use change in Yale village during 19842002.

Table 2

Regional land use dynamic in the southern area of Sissili and Ziro Provinces during

19862002

Land use

type

1986 2002 Total change Annual

change (%)ha % ha % ha %

Forest lands 209,561 17 197,747 16 11,814 6 0.38

Grazing l ands 738,17 6 60 632,82 8 5 1 105,348 14 0.88

Gallery forests 75,949 6 55,919 4 20,035 26 1.63

Croplands 213,414 17 340,606 28 127,192 + 60 +3.75

Total area 1,2 37,100 1 00 1 ,237 ,1 00 1 00 1 ,2 37,100 0 0



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At a local level, there was also a similar increase in populationwith

distinct difference in population density between the villages,

where it was lower in Boala than in Yale (Table 4). It was

interesting to note the high influx of people into Yale compared to

Boala, as shown by the high proportion of migrant population in

the former village.

The farming system was characterized by large-scale com-

mercial farming and subsistence farming (mainly in the form of

shifting cultivation). Large scale farming of commercial crops,

such as cashew nuts, maize andbeans,was found in seven districts

within the region with varying land size (Table 5); the highest

being in Cassou (1228 ha) and the lowest in Bakata (120 ha).

Attributes of subsistence farms are presented in Table 6. They

were generally small in size (46 ha/farmer), being put under

cultivation for longer period by migrant farmers who also put

higher labor input than the natives while they both had similar

off-farm activities and farming techniques. With regard to land

tenure issue, 91% of the migrants got access to land through loan

Fig. 4. Regional land use pattern in the southern zone of Burkina Faso in 2002.

Table 3

Percentage of cropland to the total area of each district, annual changes in cropland cover, annual rate of conversion to cropland and population density (no./km 2) at the

regional scale

Districts Cropland,

1986 (%)

Cropland,

2002 (%)

Annual

change (%)

Annual conversion

rate (%)

Population

density, 1986

Population

density, 2005

Annual change

in population,

19852005 (%)

Sapouy 16 22 2.6 0.4 9 19 5.0Bakata 25 40 3.6 0.9 17 39 6.7

Bougnounou 22 44 6.0 1.3 34 38 0.7

Dalo 30 37 1.5 0.5 16 32 4.9

Cassou 18 19 0.4 0.1 21 29 1.8

Gao 20 30 3.5 0.7 19 31 2.9

Ziro (Province) 19 28 2.7 0.5 0.4 17 28 3.2 2.3

Nebiel 27 27 0.1 0.0 11 19 3.8

Silly 22 27 1.5 0.3 17 29 3.3

To 26 40 3.3 0.9 24 38 2.8

Niabouri 10 34 14.3 1.5 12 34 9.0

Boura 13 34 9.8 1.3 14 23 3.1

Bieha 4 14 14.4 0.6 9 15 3.5

Leo 17 26 3.0 0.5 27 43 2.9

Sissili (Province) 16 27 4.7 0.7 0.4 16 28 3.4 2.2

Total/region 17 28 3.7 0.6 0.4 17 28 3.3 2.1

Table 4

Changes in population at two villages during the period 19852002

Item Yale Boala

1985 1996 2002 1985 1996 2002

Total population (no.) 2400 2670 3190 373 456 537

Population density (no./km2) 23 25 30 5 6 7

Natives proportion (%) 3 5 6 98 95 91

Migrants proportion (%) 97 95 94 2 5 9



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while 86% of the natives received land as a gift from parents and

relatives.

The extent of disturbance on the different land use types

differed between villages (Fig. 5). Cutting for fuelwood and local

construction was common on croplands in Boala while it was

common on grazing lands in Yale. Pruning of branches and grazinginfluence were largely observed on grazing lands in both villages

while elephant damage was disproportionately higher on forest

lands in Boala than Yale. Concerning road networks, we found

317 km of main and secondary roads, which can be used in all

seasons in the region, and 45% of the villages lying within 5 km

radius from the roads. We also found that Yale is situated at a main

road connecting Burkina Faso with Ghana, while Boala is almost

isolated and the only road to access Boala is the 34 km secondary

road and then the 9 km of path unusable during the rainy season

(i.e., JuneSeptember).

4. Discussion

The results from the present study revealed that there was a

rapid land use change both at local and regional scales. At the local

scale, the size of crop andgrazing lands increased at the expense of

shrinking of forest cover with distinct variation in magnitude of

change between villages. This land use dynamics could be driven

by the associated increase in population due to migration

particularly in Yale village, where local migration is dated backed

to the 1975 (personal communication with villagers). Apparently,

the proximity of Yale to the road made influx of people higher than

Boala, which is in line with the important synergetic causeeffect

relation between population-infrastructure and agricultural

expansion on tropical deforestation (Geist and Lambin, 2002).

The increased influx of people to the village is accounted for

increased in cropland, as migrants are involved not only in

subsistence farming but also in cultivation of commercial crops

such as cotton, cashew and beans. Consequently, Yale is nowexperiencing land shortage and most newcomers have to share

land with established immigrants due to the fact that the protected

forest reserve covers 50% of the village land coupled with the

increasing population. The fact that the migrants have user rights

to the land they obtained by loan illustrates the receptivity by the

native population (Nuni) and flexibility of the land tenure, which

has played an important role in the integration of the migrants

(mainly Mossi and Fulani) in the region, as mentioned by Howorth

(1999). However, this local land tenure is characterized by some

restrictions such as precluding tree planting by migrants, which is

considered as a mark of land appropriation like in many rural areas

of Burkina Faso. These restrictions are being contested by many

established immigrants in Yale, who suggest that having lived

there for over three decades they should have certain privileges aslong as there is no claim on land or a clear intention of

appropriation. They also suggest that the development of tree

crops contribute to the improvement of production systems, which

can be profitable for the village as a whole. This restriction on tree

planting could have a negative impact on the land use, particularly

on the diversity of on farm trees. Although the land use right is

Table 5

Size of commercial farms possessed by agri-business actors and its proportion to

the total cropland in each district in the southern region of Burkina Faso in 2002

Districts Area (ha)a Area in % Proportion of croplands

Bakata 120 3 0.5

Sapouy 948 27 2.1

Cassou 1228 35 5.4

Leo 667 19 2.7

To 105 3 0.2Bieha 200 6 0.8

Boura 200 6 0.5

Total/region 3468 100 1.0

a Data readapted by authors after Ouedraogo (2002).

Table 6

Farm characteristics (mean S.D.), farming techniques and access to land by native

and migrant populations in Bola and Yale villages

Items Native farmers Migrant farmers

Farm characteristics

Crops area per farmer (ha) 3.8 1.9 4.8 3.3

Farming duration (year) 12 10 16 8

Lab or average s ize p er f arm er 4 2 7 4

Farming techniques (%)

Manual techniques user 9 9Oxen plough users 21 25

Small ruminant rearing 13 19

Off-farm activities 17 17

Form of access to land (%)

Access to land by gift 86 9

Access to land by loan 14 91

Fig. 5. Disturbance on different land use typesin Boala and Yale villages: (A) cutting for fuelwoodand local construction, (B) pruning for animal feed, (C) damage incurred by

elephants, and (D) grazing impact.



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somehow flexible for migrant population, there is a prohibition on

a woman to own farm land by the traditional land rights.

The increase in grazing lands in both villages pertains mainly to

the installation of cattle herders on the protected area of Yale in

1997 (the Fulani ethnic group). In practice the installation was

extended to all open access areas of the region. In recent years the

high density of the cattle herds and uncontrolled grazing practices

have increased crop insecurity, and the episodic conflicts between

herders and farmers have become more frequent (Ouedraogo,

2003).

Most of the landuse dynamics issues observed at a local scale is

also reflected at the regional scale. First, there was an increase in

the size of cropland and population density as well as a change in

farming system, mainly geared towards cash crop production. This

increase in population density is associated with a continuous flux

of immigrants, which in turn alters the traditional agriculture

production systems (McMillan et al., 1992; Drabo et al., 2003;

Henry et al., 2003). The important consequence of the population

increase from influx of people was the high rate of conversion to

croplands observed in several districts. The regional rate of

conversion to croplands (0.6%) is twice higher than the national

rate (0.3%) for the period 19902005 (FAO, 2006). Similarly, the

annual rate of change in cropland (3.7%) was higher than thenational rate of 1.4% from 1984 to 1997 as reported by Stephenne

and Lambin (2001). This trend in conversion to croplands was

confirmed by Ouedraogo (2006) who found a rate of 1% for the

same period 19862002 in Bieha district of the studied region. One

important consequence of this conversion is the degradation of

Sissili protected forest in addition to the increasing illegal activities

such as charcoal production, hunting, and bush fire occurring each

year.

The second important factor is the increasing pressure from

grazing. A pastoral zone was established in 1998 within the

protected area to prevent overgrazing problems but the project

was not successful (Kamuanga et al., 2001). Instead, the high

density of cattle led to excessive pruning of fodder trees and

increasing threats to crops due to grazing, thus resulting indeterioration of social relations between herders and farmers. The

third aspect is the land tenure, which is the same for the region in

the sense that all the rural lands of the region are under the hands

of the native ethnic group (Nuni). However, recent studies have

shown that there is an emerging issue of access to forest resources

by migrants in the region, particularly in Bougnounou district

(Zougouri, 2006). At regional scale too, tree planting by migrants is

not allowed and women has norightto own a land. As inthecaseof

most areas in Burkina Faso, our study site (the southern region)

experiences land tenure insecurity, particularly due to increasing

land transactions for expansion of agri-business (Mathieu, 2001;

Bologo, 2004). In general, land tenure issue in the country is still a

subject of contention, as the Land Reform Act of 1984, revised in

1991 and 1996 (Ouedraogo, 2002) seems not to be fully applied.Several factors contribute to a more complex land usedynamics

pattern when studied at a regional scale. One is thevarious types of

resource management systems, which includes traditional sub-

sistence farming of cereal, intensivefarming of cash cropsand local

market crops and new systems of fuelwood extraction, ranching,

agri-business tree planting, protected forest reserve for fauna

conservation and pastoral management. Another factor is a weak

dialogue and/or consensus between the multitude of actors (i.e.,

native subsistence farmers, migrant farmers, migrant cattle

breeders,private actors) on the access to land and/or itsoccupation

(personal communication with local stakeholders). Sometimes,

different types of activities overlap such as the pastoral manage-

ment of grazing activities located in the Sissili protected forest and

the extensive area of fuelwood extraction. The subsistence

croplands are expanding annually and the agri-business occupa-

tions are gradually increasing into the grazing lands. But at the

same time, the density of cattle is increasing in theregion, partially

due to increasing of local herding and mainly due to the

transhumance of immigrant herders. In this area, there is also

an increasing interest in community forest management by the

local populations (e.g., Boura, To, Bori-Nebou and Cassou

exploitations zones), but Ouedraogo (2001) stressed that the

reliability of the fuelwood extraction activities in Burkina Faso is

questionable. In general, the allocation of areas to the different

activities is not always based on a consensus between the different

stakeholders (Ouedraogo, 2002; Stakeholders communication in

2003). This factor is increasing the competition among different

land use types in the region.

Thecomplexityof thecurrentland usedynamicsuggests a need

for integrated management in the region. Successful cases of local

initiatives in other areas of Burkina Faso exist from which we could

learn (Hansen and Reenberg, 1998; Reenberg and Lund, 1998;

Brasselle et al., 2002). Insecurity to access and use of land is often

caused by exogenous factors that are not adapted to the local

conditions (Ouedraogo et al., 1996; Reenberg et al., 1998), but on

the other hand the adaptation of traditional land tenure rights to

the socio-economic context of land use change is important for theimprovement of the natural resource management systems

(Ouedraogo et al., 1996; Reenberg and Lund, 1998; Drabo et al.,

2003; Mwangi and Dohrn, 2007). To this end some important

conditions are needed, which include local rights recognition,

equity in benefits for actors, and consensus on collective choices

(Hermosilla, 2000; Sulser et al., 2000; Ribot, 2001). Resources

management strategies should be built from experience and

lessons, and also need to be based on factual land use ( Castro and

Nielsen, 2001; Sandewall et al., 2001) where understanding of the

various local situations is valuable (Reenberg, 2001).

5. Conclusions

This study on land use dynamics in southern part of BurkinaFaso shows that in a decade and half the southern region has

moved from a sparsely populated area with subsistence farming to

a more complex zone of production characterized by high

competition between different land use types. The land use

change, both at local and regional levels, is moving toward

increased cropland at the expense of destructing the forest

vegetation, mainly due to population increase from immigration,

the dominance of extensive farming systems, and emergence of

commercial large scale farming. The increasing pressure on forests

from uncontrolled grazing, bush fires, highconversion to croplands

as well as fuelwood extraction are all contributing factors to the

decline in forest cover. Integrated management of the natural

resources in the region should, therefore, be given more attention.

To this end, the following recommendations are forwarded: (a)facilitate local dialogue among the various stakeholders to reach a

consensus on land use; (b) regulate the influx of people to the

region, grazing intensity to reduce the increasing pressure on the

forest resources; (c) empowering local communities in manage-

ment and conservation of forest resources; (d) follow-up of the

land use changes in the region, and the methods used in this study

can be seen as a potential tool for such monitoring.

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Swedish International Develop-

ment Cooperation Agency (Sida). We are grateful to Dr. Mulualem

Tigabu, Dr. Patrice Savadogo, Hans Sjogren and Heather Reese for

reviewing the draft manuscript and their valuable comments.



9/9

Thanks are due to Pascaline Lingani, Issa Ouedraogo, and Siaka

Nebie for their support in the field work. We also thank all the

resource persons at the Sissili Province of Burkina Faso for their

kind cooperation during the meetings and the fieldwork.

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